Palaeotheriidae

Palaeotheriidae is an extinct family of herbivorous perissodactyl mammals related to equids. They ranged across Europe and Asia from the Eocene through to the early Oligocene 55–33 Ma, existing for approximately 22 million years.

Palaeotheriidae
Temporal range: 55–28 Ma
Early Eocene to early Oligocene
Palaeotherium curtum skull
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Perissodactyla
Suborder: Hippomorpha
Family: †Palaeotheriidae
Genera

Living in dense forests, they ate soft leaves, shoots, berries, and leaf matter picked up from the forest floor.

Morphology
Plagiolophus annectens jaw

Palaeothere sizes ranged from 20 to 75 cm (8 to 30 in) at the shoulder, and weighed an estimated 10–30 kg (20–70 lb).[1]

Extinction

Evidence suggests that the palaeotheriidae went extinct in Eurasia during the Early Oligocene, approximately 33 Ma, as part of a faunal turnover event known as the Grande Coupure. The Eocene-Oligocene transition marked a significant global cooling event caused by the onset of Antarctic glaciation. This resulted in drier and more open habitats dominating the early Oligocene, and the loss of the dense forests that characterised the Eocene epoch. This environmental change, coupled with the arrival of new and better-adapted mammalian groups from Asia, triggered a decline in endemic European mammals such as the palaeotheriidae and anoplotheridae. In the Hampshire Basin of southern England the last record of the paleotheriidae is from the Lower Hamstead Mbr. of the Bouldnor Formation, dating to approximately 33.6 Ma.

Fossil distribution

See also

References
  1. S. Legendre. 1988. Les communautes de mammiferes du Paleogene (Eocene superieur et Oligocene) d'Europe occidentale: structure, milieux et evolution. Ph.D. thesis, Universite des Sciences et Techniques du Languedoc, Montpellier, France. 2 volumes. 1-265


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